With fishing shut down in the Gulf of Mexico for at least 10days from the Mississippi River to the Florida Panhandle in thewake of last week’s offshore oil rig explosion, local merchants arestill left wondering what the toll will be on area seafoodsales.

“We haven’t heard anything yet, but I was talking to the food reptoday and we were talking about how prices could start going upshortly because of supply and demand being so far apart,” saidRusty’s Family Restaurant owner Rusty Adcock Monday. “We’re goingto watch that closely.”

Fish Fry owner Wayne Boyte said he’s seen a little fluctuation inshrimp prices, but that it’s hard to tell if that’s from thesituation in the Gulf or if it’s just routine.

“It’s a little too early to tell what effect it’s going to have,”he said. “I saw some price increases on shrimp yesterday, and thatcould be normal or caused by this. You can’t tell just yet.”

Adcock said the most immediate impact he might see is on his oystersales, because with the fishing on hold, that means oystersprobably won’t be available either.

“Our oyster supplier is a mom and pop operation that have beendoing it a long time just north of Houma (Louisiana),” he said. “Iknow they’re going to be affected, and I haven’t talked to themyet. I’m hoping to talk to them this week.”

Meanwhile, local grocery stores are not as worried about the freshseafood, but if the situation gets worse, they could have to makeadjustments too, said Piggly Wiggly Manager Jeffrey Newton.

“We don’t have a fresh seafood department,” he said. “But we do getsome of our items directly from the Gulf.”

While so far there has not been any word on problems with any ofthe Gulf-raised items, Newton said stores are monitoring thesituation closely.

“Our warehouses post things over the Internet, and we keep up withit through store e-mail, so we’re keeping informed as things goalong,” he said.

Boyte said the thing he’s keeping his eye on is the price of freshseafood.

He said it’s not that the supply will really be completely cut off,because it can be gotten from other outlets. He simply worries thatit will become expensive because of the supply and demand.

“You’ll still be able to get most products, but prices will jumpterribly like everything else does when there’s a catastrophe,”Boyte said. “A lot of people will go with import shrimp, and wedon’t use import products. I’d rather not have it than useimports.”

Adcock said he will also be walking the fine line between qualityand price as the fishing crisis in the Gulf continues.

“I could go up on the price of my buffet and still have seafood,but at what point do customers not want to pay that much to havethe seafood?” he said. “I’m not going to cut my quality just tohave seafood, because people who want to eat quality food don’tmind paying a reasonable price, and I’d rather do that than pay aprice for less than quality food.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Rusty’s, which used to be theCountry Fisherman, will have had to make adjustments based on thesituation in the Gulf, Adcock said.

“After Katrina we shut off the oysters and had to offer some otherthings in their place,” he said. “We’ll just have to do that. Andif the seafood gets too outrageous pricewise, I might have torevamp what I order and adjust the price accordingly.”

Boyte said he is in touch with his vendors almost every day, andthat they are keeping him apprised of the situation, which at thispoint is murky at best.

“We’re in the same boat as everyone else. Right now it’s just await and see thing,” he said. “Most shrimp are frozen and alreadyin storage, and of course as this goes on then supply goes down andprice goes up.”

Adcock said he will be putting up signs in the windows, especiallyin regards to his popular oysters, to keep customers aware of thesituation.

“It’s a kind of a wait-and-see thing right now, and if we have to,we’ll modify our offering and mix it up,” he said. “But based onwhat those fishermen have to go through, I don’t have much tocomplain about.”